the lovers that went wrong
by Alexandra Shinai
Summary: 20 years ago, Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins made a fatal mistake. They're paying the consequences for their mistake, but their time now is mostly uneventful. But all they have is each other, and isn't that what they always wanted? And then, in the summer of 2016, Roman Reigns moves into their home. He's not as easy to get rid of as they'd like. (AU, Ambrollins & Ambrolleigns)
1. the beginning

**Whoa look at that terrible summary.**

 **It'll get better once the story moves along. Just like Darkness Falling, I promise.**

 **Inspired by Lullaby by Tokkida (it's amazing, please go read it).**

 **I don't want to give too much away, because ~suspense~, but I also want to say I have no idea what the hell I'm doing, so if you decided to read this, thank you for your time, and I hope you like it.**

 **Cross-posted to AO3.**

"Goddamnit, Dean, not again."

Dean's hand pauses above the keyboard, and he chances a look back at Seth, who's perched cross-legged on the edge of the bed, granting him an unamused look.

"What?" Dean asks innocently.

"Don't 'what' me, Ambrose. You know what I mean. If I have to listen to your sorry-ass excuse for singing _one more time,_ I'm going to shoot myself. Again."

"I thought we agreed not to joke about that shit," Dean grumbles, turning to face Seth completely and leaning against the adjacent wall.

"We didn't agree not to joke about it. We just agreed that it was something you didn't think was funny," Seth argues.

"You know why I don't think it's funny," Dean says, anger of his own starting to boil within him. "Because being stuck here is what I got for listening to your dumb ass suggesting the dumbest fuckin' idea I'd ever heard of. Look what we got for it, Seth. Look what we got. I should've fuckin' broken up with you before it got to that point."

Seth visibly falters then, face crumpling, and Dean struggles not to say anything more, because seeing that he's hit a nerve softens him almost immediately, and he wants to tell Seth _I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, you know I'm an asshole,_ but Seth's heard it a hundred times.

Maybe more.

So he just turns back to the keyboard and starts tapping out notes, humming softly in his throat as he goes, until the notes start to sound wrong and the sound of his voice dies in his throat.

When he turns back to the bed, Seth is gone.

* * *

"Sure you don't need help, uce?"

"Nah, I'm good. Thanks, man," Roman says, shoving the box with the last of the few belongings he's going to take with him into the trunk.

"I still don't know why the hell you wanna get outta Pensacola," Jey speaks up, leaning against the side of Roman's SUV. "Don't you like it here?"

"You know I love it here," Roman says. He means it; a part of him doesn't want to leave. His family is here; the best beach in the entire world is here (well, that's his opinion, but isn't his opinion all that matters?), and it's almost always warm and sunny here. Pensacola is his favorite place in the world, but he's thirty-one and he's been here virtually his entire life.

It's time for him to go. Get out. See the world.

Well, not exactly.

In his "quest to find new things and discover himself," as Naomi had so irritatingly called it, he'd chosen to move to a small city in Indiana, of which he still struggled to pronounce its name.

Terre Haute.

He'd already decided to go to Indiana, having never been there before, and with its biggest, southernmost city being over five hundred miles away, he figured it'd be a good way to get out and experience new things.

He'd chosen Terre Haute specifically for one reason: someone had put an entire fucking mansion on the market for only $50,000.

He may have been "Pensacola's most eligible bachelor," as Jimmy had dubbed him, with no need for more than a small apartment, but he figured that if he liked Indiana enough, maybe he'd need it in the future. He'd have plenty of room for his cousins and other family if they came to visit, and he'd certainly have enough room to start a family, if he so desired.

The mansion was gorgeous, and from the limited information on the listing, Roman had no idea why they'd put it up for so cheap. The only information provided in the listing was that it was being sold by the owners, the McMahons, whose ancestors had apparently founded Indiana State University (he'd learned this from late-night Google research).

He didn't have $50,000 on him, but after finding that all they required to purchase it at the moment was a down payment of $5,000, he jumped on it. He had at least $10,000 saved up from various odd jobs after college, and he had hopes he'd be able to find a permanent job in Indiana.

Today, the last day of May, is the day he's leaving Pensacola to drive up to Indiana and move into his new house. Jimmy and Jey had come over to his apartment to help him pack up the last of his things and fit them all into his car, and now, he's fairly certain he's got everything he needs.

It's a little bittersweet; he's excited at the prospect of new things, but he knows he's going to miss his family, and when Jimmy and Jey hug him to say goodbye, he can feel the burn of tears pricking his eyes.

 _Don't fucking cry, Roman,_ he tries to tell himself. _It's not like you're never gonna see them again._

It doesn't seem to be helping.

"Good luck, uce," Jimmy says when he steps back, out of their hug. "Better not get murdered up there. $50k for a mansion is sketchy as hell, you know."

Roman laughs and tries to discreetly wipe a tear from his eye. "I'll be fine, man. Gotta come visit me, yeah?"

"For sure."

* * *

Dean wanders throughout the house to look for Seth, knowing he couldn't have gone too far (they can't get farther than the edge of the street, anyway; they've tried, on multiple occasions). He finds Seth in the basement, knees drawn up to his chest and face pressed into them, and his body is shaking.

Sometimes, Dean has to remind himself they're still just kids, and time goes on without them, even though it shouldn't.

"Seth, I didn't mean it. I was just pissed, okay?" Dean says, voice soft. Seth ignores him, and Dean sighs and settles down next to him, wrapping an arm around his side, letting him cry.

Dean's still there when Seth finally looks up, face blotchy and wet with tears, eyes red-rimmed and watering with more tears ready to spill.

"I didn't know it was going to happen like this," Seth sobs out, and his voice cracks, and Dean pulls Seth in closer, kisses the top of his head and tries in vain to comfort him.

"If I'd known… I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't have wanted you to do it, either. I'm so sorry," Seth continues, and on 'sorry' he bursts into tears once more, and although Dean's heart aches, all he can do is hold Seth close and let him cry, even though they've had this argument so many times before.

They've gone in opposite directions since that one regretted night twenty years ago; Dean's grown a harder shell, grown colder to the world outside their world, hateful towards anyone other than Seth, but Seth's grown softer, and Dean knows he wants out, but there's no way out.

This was _supposed_ to be their way out.

But it didn't quite work like that.


	2. the arrival

**So after spending an hour looking up actual houses for sale in Terre Haute, I came to the conclusion that the town has no mansions, and if it does, that they're not for sale.**  
 **So, I took inspiration for the outside layout of the property from an actual picturesque property I found for sale in Terre Haute, but the mansion itself, including its layout, is inspired by Champ d'Or, an actual, infamous mansion about an hour and a half from where I live that's just garish enough to work here. (Yes, it actually has three kitchens and two gold-plated elevators. Please do yourself a favor and Google it after you read the chapter.)**  
 **I hope you enjoy the chapter :)**

When Seth quiets and calms down, Dean decides to take him outside. The property's massive, lying on a street not well-traveled, and even if there were people passing by, the two of them can't be seen unless they choose to be.

The sun's just starting to set as they walk down the long, winding driveway, and Dean smiles faintly at that, remembering a time many years ago when he'd driven Seth across the entire state just to get to the highest-elevated hill in Indiana, just to watch the sun set. Afterwards, Seth had kissed him deeply in thanks, and Dean had pulled him into the backseat and made him come undone under his hands.

A part of him still wished they could do that, but the closest they've ever come is lounging around by the dried out pool, watching the sun set through a thick forest of trees.

They stop by the gate, which, unfortunately for them, someone's closed (they haven't quite perfected the art of passing through solid objects yet). Dean peers at the _For Sale_ sign just beyond the gate and realizes it's no longer there.

It's been replaced by a _Sold_ sign.

"New bait," Dean murmurs lowly in Seth's ear. Seth looks up in interest, catching the new sign. He laughs, sounding delighted.

"That's the best part of this whole thing. Scaring the fuck out of people and seeing how long they can take it."

"What, eternity together doesn't sound good to you?"

Dean catches Seth's smile, but it's twisted with something bitter.

"You know that's all I ever wanted," Seth says quietly. "Just not like this."

"I know," Dean responds, gathering Seth in close and pressing a kiss to the top of his head again. "We were supposed to get married. Now that it's fuckin' legal, we can't even get to a fuckin' chapel."

"…We were supposed to get married?" Seth asks after a few moments of silence.

"Wasn't it obvious?" Dean asks, turning his head to inspect Seth. Seth shakes his head no, and Dean actually laughs in disbelief. "Fuck, man. Remember when we used to talk about running away? We were gonna drive to Los Angeles or somethin'. And I knew I was gonna make a pit stop, buy you a ring and get you a goddamn Vegas wedding. And then we'd get some convenience store cake or some shit. I think not bein' able to do that has been one of my biggest regrets about this whole thing."

Seth remains unusually quiet, and when Dean reaches out and tips his chin up, he finds that Seth's eyes are wet.

"Aw, c'mon, don't cry. When did you get so soft?" he teases. "Whatever happened to the 'prissy, rich asshole Seth Rollins' that I fell in love with?"

"He's stuck in '96," Seth mumbles, and Dean smiles and plants another kiss on Seth's forehead.

"Remember when we were two sixteen-year-old lovesick idiots?" Dean asks, shifting a little to murmur the question into Seth's hair. Seth nods before he speaks.

"We're technically still two sixteen-year-old lovesick idiots," he reminds Dean.

"That's true. It just feels like it's been fuckin' forever."

"Well, twenty years is a long time."

Dean hums his agreement, and they stand there wrapped up in each other and invisible to the rest of the world until the sun disappears below the horizon, before retreating back to the house that now more than ever feels like a prison.

* * *

It takes Roman two whole days just to get in town, what with his necessary food and sleep breaks, and the sun is starting to set on June 2 when his SUV rolls past the 'Terre Haute City Limit' sign. Even though the sign proclaims that the population is 60,000, this part of town feels more like a town of 10,000, with narrow streets, tiny houses, and small businesses galore.

It takes him an additional twenty minutes after he passes the 'City Limit' sign (he counts, just for lack of anything better to do) to find his new house. All he sees when he rolls up to the enormous gate is a curving driveway that disappears into the trees beyond, and no house in sight. He knows it's the right house, though, from the small, easy-to-miss keypad next to the fence. It looks decades old, and Roman's not even sure it'll work, but after he'd paid he'd received instructions to punch a four-digit PIN into the keypad to open the gate once he'd arrived.

He carefully inputs the code, _0531,_ into the keypad. He waits, hearing a soft _click_ before the gate slowly swings open, creaking ominously the entire time. Roman feels odd for a brief moment, like he's gotten into something that maybe was a bad idea.

"Get over yourself, Reigns," he mutters to himself before he drives through the gate, creeping along the curving driveway, unsure of where it'll take him. He doesn't want to come to a sudden dropoff and end up unintentionally killing himself. In his opinion, thirty-one's too young to die. He's got so many more things left to do.

He's pulled from his thoughts when he realizes he can now see the curve of a rounded roof through the trees, and as he continues down the path, the mansion he's paid for reveals itself to him.

"Holy fucking shit," he says, the words falling from his lips on their own accord as he takes in the sight. It's fucking _huge,_ a lot bigger than he'd imagined. The outside of it makes it look like it belongs on the cover of a magazine catered to rich people. It looks like what rich executives would use to throw house parties with tons of people they didn't really know and lots of expensive champagne and fancy finger foods nobody really ate.

There's a car parked in front, just by the steps that lead up to the archway that leads to the front door, and it startles him for a moment until he realizes it's probably just the owners. They'd specifically requested they meet with him to finalize the decision, show him the house and make sure it's what he wants.

Looking at it, as long as the listing was actually $50,000 and not $50,000,000, he's pretty damn sure it's what he wants.

He pales slightly when he checks the dashboard clock and realizes he's probably kept them waiting long enough. They'd told him they left a key under the welcome mat, and so he parks next to the other car, hurriedly tries to make himself look presentable (even trying to tame down his wild mane of hair and failing miserably), then gets out of his car and heads for the front door.

* * *

"So the house has six bedrooms, six full bathrooms, and eight powder rooms."

 _What the fuck is a powder room,_ Roman wants to ask, but he bites his tongue. The woman, Stephanie, in the couple he'd met in the foyer, introducing themselves as the owners, is currently giving him a tour of the place, and Roman thinks that unless the place was filthy, in disrepair, and filled with all kinds of vermin, it would never be worth merely $50,000.

But it looks pristine. He hasn't seen even a speck of dust. And he has yet to hear or see anything that would suggest any infestations.

"It's also got an exercise room, indoor and outdoor pool, outdoor tennis court, indoor racquetball court, indoor bowling alley, a theater, a very large wine cellar, and three kitchens."

 _Who the fuck needs three kitchens?_

Roman makes a mental note to himself to invite his entire family over as soon as he gets settled in. _Everyone._ This house looks like it could comfortably fit at least ten sets of his entire family, extended and all, and his family tree is massive.

By the end of the tour, Roman feels a little winded, even though he's in great shape. The house is a whopping forty thousand square feet, and although Roman's pretty sure Stephanie and Hunter haven't shown him everything from the way Stephanie seems a little twitchy and rushed, he knows that if he can afford this house, he wants it.

It's got it _all._ Even two fucking gold-plated elevators.

Because apparently, when you get rich, all you can ever think is _Hey, why not?_

He's still wondering why the fuck anyone needs gold-plated elevators, but he'll take them.

"So," Stephanie says to Roman once they step back into the foyer where they'd started, smiling brightly, "do you have any questions about the home? Are you still interested?"

"I'm sure as he—er, I'm definitely still interested. I just have one question."

"Shoot," Hunter says.

"Are you sure you meant to sell this for fifty thousand? I'm sure it could sell for fifty _million,_ easily."

"There was—" Stephanie starts, and Roman notes how her bright smile falters and she looks a little anguished, but Hunter speaks over her.

" _Steph,"_ he says, giving her a look that Roman interprets as _be quiet._ "We're just looking to get rid of it. You see, my parents built this house in the '60s. It's been in our family ever since, but starting in 1997, we decided it was what we no longer wanted. We started renting it to people, but they've never stayed very long. That's understandable; it can be quite hard to maintain such a large property, or afford the taxes on it. But now, we're looking to permanently relocate, and we need to sell this to help fund our relocation."

"So… you're pricing it at fifty grand because you're desperate to get rid of it?"

Hunter smiles, but it looks oddly out of place on his face, as if there's something hidden behind it. "You can put it that way, if you'd like."

"Well, then I'd definitely like to purchase it," Roman says. It feels right; even more right than when he'd accepted his full-ride scholarship to Georgia Tech.

"Wonderful," Stephanie says, and she smiles at him again, but Roman's always been good at reading people, and this smile doesn't quite meet her eyes.


	3. destruction

**Dean's a little morbid in this chapter... just FYI.**

It's weird being alone in a house so big.

That's what Roman decides when Stephanie and Hunter make their departure, and he's left standing alone in the foyer, staring at the expanse laid out before him.

He's starting to wonder if maybe he made the wrong decision. Thirty-one years old, no boyfriend or girlfriend, no stable job, and he just went and bought a fucking monster of a house.

 _Nice going, Roman. Real smart of you to think things through before you came all the way here. No turning back now._

This was usually the part when someone else started berating him for his life choices, but since he's all alone, the job falls on him now.

He sighs and scrubs a hand over his face, tipping his head up to stare at the ceiling, at the spiral staircase that seems to extend to the ceiling.

He decides he might as well start moving in.

* * *

"I don't like him."

"You say that about everyone."

"Well, it's true. And he's just like the rest of 'em. I can smell it from here."

"You're ridiculous," Seth sighs, lobbing the tennis ball they'd been tossing around directly at Dean's head. Dean dodges it, and the ball hurtles past him and slams into the wall with a loud _thunk,_ leaving a dent in the wallpaper as it drops back down to the ground.

"Think he'll notice?" Dean asks, craning his head around to inspect the dent as he reaches back to retrieve the ball.

"Mmm. Probably not. Kinda seems to me like the aloof, head-up-his-ass type."

"Yeah. Bet he wouldn't even notice we were here unless we dropped a vase on his head," Dean says, snickering as he rolls the ball across the floor to Seth, taking the lazy route this time. "Hey, you think we could actually do that?"

"Hell no, Dean. I see that light you're getting in your eyes; you think I don't know you? We're not doing that. You _promised_ no more direct violence after you almost killed that couple with the little girl."

"Spoilsport," Dean grumbles.

"You can't fall into that kind of behavior, Dean," Seth says patiently as he twists and turns the ball in his hands, a mindless habit that he's never been able to break. "We're good people that made bad choices. We can't let the bad choices make us bad people."

"What are you, my therapist?"

"I think I hate you," Seth says, lobbing the ball at Dean again, but this time he doesn't bother to move, and it bounces off his chest and drops to the floor.

"You know, that's funny, 'cause I think I love you."

There's a silence, and Dean grins unabashedly at Seth, and Seth sighs, but the corners of his lips are twitching.

"I hate you so much," Seth finally says, but he's smiling, and for a moment Dean thinks his smile could burn the entire world to nothing but smoldering ashes with how brightly it shines.

"Hey," Dean says, grabbing the ball again and tossing it idly in his hands, "what do you say we leave him a little housewarming present?"

"Swear you're not going to kill him?"

"Swear. Unless he provokes me."

" _Dean._ "

"…Swear."

"Then go ahead, do what you want."

From their position on the landing at the top of the house's main spiral staircase, Dean throws the ball over the railing.

"Maybe he'll notice that," Dean says after he hears the _thud_ of the ball hitting the carpet in the foyer, eyes alight with mischief.

Seth nods his agreement, but he looks deep in thought, like he's pondering something.

"What's on your mind?" Dean asks.

"Just thinking about how I wouldn't wanna spend eternity with anyone else," Seth says softly.

Dean's about to come up with one of his usual, incredibly witty responses, when he hears the front door open.

* * *

Roman bends down to put the first box of his belongings on the floor, intending to go back out and get the other boxes box-by-box until all his possessions are stacked in the foyer and ready to be unpacked, but as he straightens, something catches his eye.

Just a few feet away, there's a tennis ball lying on the floor, its neon colors standing out starkly against the maroon shade of the carpet.

"Huh," Roman murmurs, walking over and bending down to pick it up off the floor. He turns it over, looking at it, as if it'll have any marks identifying who it belongs to. He knows it's not something that just fell out of one of his boxes.

After inspecting the ball, but coming up with nothing, he looks up toward the staircase, but it's empty, and he's not really sure what he was expecting.

He figures maybe it's something Hunter or Stephanie had brought with them, dropped and forgotten to retrieve; maybe Stephanie used it as a stress ball. She certainly acted like she needed one.

He places the ball on top of the box, then heads back outside to retrieve the second box from his SUV.

* * *

"He didn't even really _notice,_ " Dean complains, swiping the ball from its position on top of a crease in the box. "I was expectin' him to be like one of those dumbasses who'll walk around their big, 'empty' houses looking for something, going ' _Hello? Is anyone there?'_ and I could walk around the corner and pretend-threaten him with a knife or somethin'. But no, he's gotta be all bland and boring. I bet he's a jackass with a shitty personality."

"Dean," Seth chastises gently, placing a hand on his arm, fingers stroking softly over his skin. Dean's frown lessens, but only minimally. "That's so cliché. We didn't end up like this just to become clichés. 'Pretend-threaten him with a knife?'"

"I figured you wouldn't want me to _actually_ threaten him. But it'd be fun."

"I thought we agreed you weren't getting to use knives anymore after you attempted to kill someone with one."

"…Don't remind me."

"You're so _cliché,_ Dean. You can't come up with anything more creative than a knife for attempted murder?"

"You can't even _hold_ a knife without thinkin' someone's gonna come up and grab it and stab you. There's no one here that would stab you. And you're _dead._ If someone inexplicably stabbed you, you'd be back to normal in five minutes tops."

"Dean, we're not—"

The front door opens, interrupting their conversation once more.

* * *

After Roman brings in the last box and sets it atop another box, he takes a step back to look at the small stack he's created.

It's almost laughable, looking at this average-sized stack in such a massive home. He'd only brought minor things, like clothing and toiletries. The biggest things he'd brought were his guitar, his TV, and one of his video game systems. He'd brought as much as he could fit in the SUV, though, and he had many boxes filled with things like books and DVDs and CDs. He'd figured he could buy any other major things later, like a bed.

He looks from the stack of boxes to the interior of the house, staring at the living room connected to the foyer. It's well-furnished, and for a moment, he hopes the rest of the house is, too. He certainly can't afford to furnish this place himself.

Hell, he'll be lucky to afford the utilities.

Thinking about the house and its possible troubles is starting to give him a headache, and he decides he needs to get out.

Just for a little while, just to breathe.

It's starting to feel oddly suffocating, even though he's all alone in a home the size of twenty average homes, with all the space in the world to do whatever ridiculous, selfish things he wants.

Stephanie had given him the keys, and he checks his pockets to make sure they're still there, along with his wallet. They're both still there, and so he heads out, carefully locking the door behind him.

* * *

"He didn't even notice it was gone! God, if he's always gonna be like this, we're never gonna get rid of him."

Dean's starting to flat-out whine, thoroughly irritated by this new guy's existence and his presence in their home.

"You have to be patient. We'll get rid of him. It just takes time, remember?"

"I hate waiting," Dean huffs, and Seth reaches up, runs his fingers through Dean's unruly hair and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

"Well, you'll have to wait," he says when he pulls back. "Because we have to come up with a full-fledged plan for getting rid of him."

"You're killing me."

* * *

Ten minutes from his new home, Roman finds a small, extremely shady-looking bar, but he figures _what the hell, it'll do._

He nurses a glass of cheap whiskey and tries to pretend that he hasn't started worrying about stupid things again, tries to pretend that he's not worrying about how to pay for anything other than what he's already paid for.

He tries to forget himself.

A girl who looks fairly pretty comes by and starts chatting him up, and even a little drunk he knows she's flirting, leaning in and touching his arm as she talks and smiling and laughing too much at things that aren't funny, and he knows what she wants.

He takes her home—takes her to the place he'll have to consider home—even though he shouldn't be driving when he's drunk, but what the hell, he's decided he needs to live a little.

He leads her in by the hand, wanders around until he finds one of the house's six bedrooms, fully furnished with a bed that looks like it could fit six people comfortably, and he proceeds to christen it by fucking her in it.

But his head's somewhere else the entire time, and even afterwards, when he's lying next to her and she's sound asleep and he's either too drunk or too nice to kick her out, he's wide awake, thinking.

He ends up passing out sometime during the night, waking in the morning in an empty bed with a pounding headache and guilt settling thick in his chest.

* * *

"I officially _hate_ him. Look at him, he's obviously shitfaced. And he's got the nerve to bring a fuckin' girl in."

"Maybe she's his girlfriend," Seth suggests. They're sitting on the floor of the top landing of the home's main staircase, watching the new owner of the home go and desecrate it. "Or his wife."

"Nah, I think she's a whore he picked up somewhere," Dean says, trying his hardest to keep his temper under control, fists clenching and unclenching. "Neither of them have any right to be here. Swear I'm gonna go after both of them. Bet there are still golf clubs in the basement that fuckin' golf nerd forgot about."

He starts to climb to his feet, but Seth grabs him by the hand and yanks him back down, and he nearly falls flat on his face.

"Dean, _no,"_ Seth hisses. "Goddamn it, we've had this conversation. No killing anyone. People will notice if they go missing, and you've got no reason to kill them."

"Yeah, I do! They're making it fuckin' miserable around here. God, I think I liked it better when your shitty excuses for parents were around here."

"We can get rid of them without killing them."

"So I can't try burning the place down with them in it?"

"Dean, I swear to god, if I catch you trying to burn our house down, I'm going to find a way to kill you permanently."

Dean can still feel the frown etched across his face, can still taste the displeasure on his tongue, but all the fight drains out of his body, because they both know that in the end, what Seth wants, Seth gets.

"Why don't we go do something else? Something that puts your destructiveness to good use," Seth says, rising to his feet and pulling Dean up along with him.

 _That_ gets Dean's attention. "Are you really suggesting that?" he asks.

Seth smiles. "Of course. I think it's way overdue, don't you?"


	4. explosion

**I feel like I should warn everyone that a) this story probably won't have a happy ending and b) Seth and Dean's relationship is, as shown in this chapter, nowhere near picture-perfect.**  
 **Think of it like this: Dean is a vengeful ghost, Seth isn't. So there's going to be a lot of conflict between them (and Roman, eventually).**

Seth's lying in the bed of another one of the house's numerous bedrooms, naked except for the sheet pulled up to his chest. Dean has an arm around him, keeping him tucked into his side, and Seth feels warm, safe.

He knows Dean's awake—they can't sleep even if they want to—but there are no words being exchanged between the two of them, and all Seth hears is the sound of Dean breathing.

When Dean had started getting worked up over the new guy, and Seth was seriously worried for the new guy's life, he'd done a perfect job of distracting Dean – he'd pulled Dean into a bedroom, set him down on the bed and ordered Dean to fuck him into the mattress.

Obviously, Dean was all too happy to oblige. They've still got the sex drive of teenagers, and Dean's said on more than one occasion that his goal is to fuck Seth at least once in every room in the house.

They haven't tried the ballroom yet, but Seth thinks it would be fun, what with all its mirrors.

He thinks he could go for a round two just from thinking of it.

But there's something else, weighing heavy on his mind, that he thinks he needs to address before he can go for another round.

He sighs, leaning in to press a kiss to Dean's cheek. "I'll be back in a sec," he murmurs as he pushes Dean's arm away and gets out of bed.

"Where are you going?" Dean asks. Seth turns back to him in the doorway of the room, fingers tapping against its frame for lack of anything better to do.

"I'm just gonna check on something. I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere," Seth says before he steps out. He walks down the hallway slowly, making sure along the way that he'll be invisible to the new guy, because he's still naked, and at this point, the only one who he wants to get an eyeful is Dean.

Seth checks each bedroom, but he doesn't find the new guy. He does, however, find the bedroom the new guy had used last night; the sheets are still rumpled, the bed unmade. His curiosity is eating away at him, though, and so he continues looking, until he finds the new guy in the main kitchen.

The new guy is sitting at the island, a mug of something seated atop it, and he has his head in his hands.

Seth actually feels a little bad for him. He seems so sad; it's radiating from him, and Seth can feel it, all the way down to his bones.

He kind of wants to say something, so he starts looking for something to write with. He steps back, only to run into something solid behind him.

When he turns around, he finds Dean looming over him, just as naked as he is, but Seth feels a little intimidated as he stares at the stormy picture of anger on Dean's face.

"What the hell are you doing, Seth?" Dean asks, voice low and cold, so cold that it sends a chill through Seth's body.

He loves Dean, loves him more than anything else there could possibly be in the world, but this is the Dean that terrifies him. The Dean who could and would murder people without a second thought, the Dean who knows nothing but hate, as if Seth had never found him, as if Seth had never loved him.

"I'm just—"

"It's all over your face. I thought we agreed to get rid of him. Scare the shit out of him; make him run screaming, just like everyone else. Not try to fucking make _friends_ with him!"

He punctuates this by stepping around Seth to get to the island and slapping the mug across the island, and it skids across and falls to the floor, shattering on impact.

"Dean, calm down," Seth begs, searching Dean's dark eyes for a sign, any sign that he hears Seth, that he's listening. "Please."

"I'll fucking kill him if I have to," Dean snarls, and Seth wraps himself around Dean's body, trying to stop him, trying to block him, trying to make him listen.

"I just wanted to get a good look at him, I wasn't trying to make friends with him, we can still scare him off, please listen to me, Dean," Seth says desperately, watching Dean's face as he speaks, feeling the tenseness of Dean's body under his hands.

After a long silence passes between them, too long for Seth's comfort, Dean sighs, and Seth can feel the tension slowly drain from Dean's body, and Dean puts an arm around him, pulling him closer.

"'M sorry," Dean mumbles into Seth's hair. "Just… fuck, I don't know, got jealous or something."

"What do you have to be jealous of? I don't even know his _name,_ Dean."

"…Fine, you got me there. I was just afraid you wanted him to stay," Dean confesses, and his voice sounds shaky. "No one else can stay, Sethie. This is _our_ house. It belongs to us. Not whoever your parents want to ship it off to."

"You don't have to worry about that," Seth reassures him. "I don't even know him. 'S not like I'm gonna get randomly attached to him. I only give a shit about you."

"'S good," Dean says, pressing a kiss to the top of Seth's head, before looking up again, eyes focusing on the man sitting at the kitchen island. "Think we mighta started scaring him already."

* * *

When Roman drags himself out of bed, he puts on a pair of sweatpants and spends ten minutes walking around trying to find the kitchen to make himself some coffee. It seems as if Hunter and Stephanie have left the place fully furnished, as he finds a coffee maker on the kitchen counter and mugs in a cabinet.

He makes himself a cup of coffee and then settles down at the island, placing his head in his hands as he debates whether or not to rifle through his (still not unpacked) boxes to try and find some medicine for the hangover hammering through his skull, or if he should look around the bathrooms in hopes of finding some medicine.

In the midst of his debating, he hears the screeching of something being pushed along a surface, and then what sounds like glass shattering. He lifts his head, only to find that his (nearly full) mug of coffee is no longer in front of him, but on the floor in pieces, the liquid splattered across the floor and puddling in places.

"What the _fuck_?" he asks.


	5. playtime

**This is literally just smut. And by smut I mean Dean fucking Seth in front of a mirror because a friend made me want Ambrollins mirror sex. Sorry not sorry. Warnings for dirty talk and some exhibitionism/voyeurism near the end.**

"Is this what you want?" Dean asks as he presses his body against Seth's, pinning the other man's chest against one of the ballroom's numerous mirrors, hands braced on either side of his body.

Seth shivers and tries to remember how to form words. He nods, buying himself time to find his voice again.

"Yeah," he finally pants. "I want this."

"Then show me," Dean murmurs low in his ear, his tone sending a sharp spike of arousal coursing through Seth's blood. One of Dean's hands moves, sliding down to press against Seth's abdomen, shifting him enough so that his ass presses against Dean's crotch, and Seth can feel the line of Dean's hard cock pressing against him, and the sensation sends another wave of arousal crashing through him.

"Dean," Seth says, for lack of anything better to say, pressing his cheek into the glass of the mirror while pressing his ass back against Dean.

"Show me," Dean repeats, and the hand that's resting on Seth's abdomen slides down and slips underneath the waistband of his sweatpants, wrapping around his cock. Seth jerks involuntarily and moans as Dean starts to stroke his half-hard cock to full hardness.

Seth squeezes his eyes shut, trying to focus only on the sensations, of the warmth of Dean's body around him, of the pleasurable buzz of Dean's hand stroking him expertly, but then Dean's voice returns, low and rough in his ear.

"Open your eyes. Look at yourself," he encourages, still stroking Seth's cock steadily, and when he twists his hand on the upstroke Seth moans again and tries to dig his fingers into the pane of glass that doesn't give.

"C'mon, Seth," Dean whispers in his ear. "Look at yourself. I haven't even gotten inside you yet and you already look all fucked-out."

Seth forces himself to open his eyes, because he _wants_ to see; that's the whole reason why they're here, because he wanted to see what he looked like from every angle.

When he focuses on himself in one of the mirror panes a few feet away, he gasps, and his cock throbs and oozes some precum that Dean spreads over the tip.

Seth's hair is a mess, his skin is inexplicably flushed red, and his shirt is rucked up and the top of his sweatpants only reaches his upper thighs, but it's the whole image that gets him. The sight of Dean over him, jerking him off and pressing his own hips against Seth's ass for friction, is a lot hotter than he'd imagined, and it puts him dangerously close to coming, sooner than he'd like.

Dean pulls away, and Seth whines in protest, wanting—no, _needing_ —more. There's a silence that's nearly uncomfortable in its length, and Seth wonders if Dean's just going to leave him all 'hot and bothered,' when Dean returns behind him, and Seth nearly jumps when he feels a slicked finger pressing against his entrance.

"Relax, baby," Dean says, and Seth's always loved what arousal does to the pitch of Dean's voice, lowering it to something that feels like an auditory fuck. "'S just me."

And it is, and Seth relaxes into his touch, moaning at the feeling as Dean pushes a finger into him, because it's been so fucking long and he's missed this. Not too long after that, he feels another slicked finger pressing at his entrance before pushing inside, stretching him further. Seth tries to push back, wanting more, needing more, but Dean stops him, pressing himself against Seth's back and leaving a trail of distracting kisses along the side of his neck.

"You're so impatient," Dean murmurs in between kisses, forcing a gasp from Seth's lips when he spreads the two fingers inside of him, stretching him.

"S' cause you're teasing me," Seth manages, just before Dean pushes another finger into him, filling him further. But it's still not enough for Seth; he knows what he wants. "More, Dean, please," he begs, shifting a little and pressing his cheek into the cool pane of glass, fingers sticky with sweat sliding along its surface.

"Fine, I'll give you what you want, 'cause you beg so nice," Dean says, and his free hand sneaks around to Seth's front to give him one last stroke before pulling away entirely, leaving Seth entirely too horny and empty for his liking.

" _Dean,_ " Seth whines impatiently, but he quiets when he hears a buckle being undone, and glances in another mirror to find Dean hastily pulling down his pants.

He closes his eyes for a second and breathes out heavily, and then Dean is behind him again, laughing softly in his ear. Seth opens his eyes to watch the two of them in the mirror.

"Needed me that bad, huh?" he asks, pressing a kiss to Seth's shoulder as his only warning before he pushes in. Even with the prep and additional lube, the stretch and resulting burn is still fairly intense, and Seth cries out involuntarily. Dean stops immediately, and Seth can feel his worry.

"Shit, Seth, did I hurt you?" he asks frantically.

"No, 'course not," Seth says, trying to momentarily silence the part of him that's demanding Dean to just fuck him already. "Just… it's been so long, you know?"

"Too long," Dean decides, and Seth feels the other man's hands come to rest on his hips as Dean continues to push into him. Seth watches them in the mirror for a moment; watches how Dean touches him with such care as he fills him; watches how Seth instinctively pushes back for more, like a wanton whore; watches how they fit together so perfectly that he can't help but think that the world wouldn't be right if they weren't together.

Dean pauses once he's pushed in all the way, giving Seth some time to adjust, but once Seth asks for more (the exact words are actually _'Fuck me already'),_ he gives Seth what he wants.

It seems like he always knows exactly what Seth needs, and this is no exception, Dean starting up a hard and fast pace that knocks Seth against the glass more than once, but it starts that fire burning up in him again, each thrust pushing him closer to the edge, and he's been so close for such a long time already that he thinks he might come before Dean's even really gotten started.

Dean continues to fuck into him, hard and fast, and Seth's cock is hard and leaking precum onto the floor, some of it smearing on the glass of the mirror when the head of his cock bumps it. He's teetering on the edge, feeling so overstimulated that he'd arrived at the edge sooner than he'd like, but he figures in the back of his mind that they can always go for a round two.

Or three.

Or four.

They seem to have never-ending endurance now.

He's so close, and Dean stops and shifts his angle slightly, then starts fucking into him again, and Seth's sure he's going to come in the next minute, because now, every thrust is hitting his prostate while simultaneously slamming him against the mirror, and it creates a heady mix of pain and pleasure that's getting him there all too soon.

Seth shifts his gaze, and his eyes land on the open door to the ballroom that's visible in one of the mirrors, and he nearly jumps when he realizes there's someone standing there, watching intently, eyes dark.

Their eyes lock in the mirror, and Dean gives a particularly sharp thrust, and Seth is coming, the feeling washing over him and leaving him nearly boneless, and the lower half of the mirror is streaked white with his cum, and when he looks back in the mirror, his voyeur is gone.


	6. too much

Roman has decided that there's something very wrong with him.

 _Very._

Because, when he saw two unfamiliar men spending time in the ballroom of his new home, engaging in something obscenely pornographic, his first reaction wasn't to call the cops and tell them there were intruders in his home.

No, his first reaction was his body's traitorous decision to get turned on.

The smaller of the two had made eye contact with him through a veil of half-blonde hair and had promptly come all over himself, and Roman wouldn't admit to anyone, not even himself, that he'd jerked off to that image more than once this past week.

And an even sicker part of him had wished he could join, because the lust and passion in that room at that time had nearly smothered him with its intensity.

He hasn't been in there since.

He'd come here to get away. To get away from the expectations of his parents in Pensacola, to get away from the pressure placed on him just because of his identity, and most importantly, to get away from the loose ends of a red string he hadn't been the one to cut.

Somehow, it feels like the past is still haunting him, and he's run 700 miles to get away from it all, only for it to come with him, a weight on his back threatening to crush him with every passing moment.

He thinks he needs to find something to occupy his time so that he'll stop thinking so damn much.

Like a job.

That would be a good place to start.

Roman frowns down at his cup of coffee as if it's the root of all his problems, sitting innocuously on the kitchen island. He sighs and rubs his temples, trying to think of what jobs would best suit him that won't require him to bust his ass too much, because he's all-too familiar with working himself into depression. In the distance, he hears a door slam, but he doesn't react, instead electing to tune it out.

He's gotten used to the weird shit happening around here, to the point where it only unsettles him when it's four in the morning and he's woken by the door to his bedroom opening and the sound of footsteps when he's seemingly alone. And if it freaked him out any more than that… well, it's still better than going back home.

In retrospect, he's been fairly laidback about the whole thing. A broken vase in the foyer? Didn't bother him. The kitchen he regularly used looking as if someone had ravaged it? Didn't get a rise out of him. Even when he'd found all his clothes taken out of the closet and dresser and dumped on the floor, he hadn't been too bothered; the only thing that bothered him about it was having to put it all away again.

Maybe he should've been more concerned.

He lifts his cup of coffee and sips from it, and he's in the midst of setting it back down when he catches movement in the corner of his eye. He turns his head to look and is momentarily grateful that he'd just put his coffee down, because what he sees makes him nearly tip it over in genuine shock, an emotion that hasn't seen the light of day in his veins for several months now.

There's a man standing by the fridge, hair unruly and eyes bluer than the darkest sapphire, boring into his own. The look in his eyes can only be described as cold, unforgiving, and it sends a chill up Roman's spine. But the man is smiling, a smile so big it creates dimples in his cheeks, and Roman knows there's something wrong here.

But Roman might be the biggest idiot of all time, because he doesn't move. Doesn't do anything, really; hardly even breathes as he watches the man carefully.

It won't save him if the guy decides to murder him.

Maybe he should've listened to Jimmy.

The man raises a hand and Roman's eyes widen as he realizes the man's hand is stained bright red with what looks like blood, but neither of them do anything.

They just watch each other.

After a long moment, the man speaks, his voice so rough and worn-out-sounding that Roman struggles to understand his words. "So you've decided to stay, huh?"

Roman doesn't grant him an answer.

"That's not a good decision, _Roman,"_ the man continues, spitting out Roman's name like it's acid on his tongue, paining him to speak it. "You see, this house is already occupied. And we've tried to... gently _encourage_ you to leave, but you're a stubborn son of a bitch, and you just won't go."

None of anything the guy's saying is making sense, and Roman thinks maybe he's just had one too many sleepless nights, that he's imagining the man in a tattered, suspiciously stained leather jacket threatening him, that his mind needs a rest.

But he starts to get up off the chair at the island, and the man is in front of him, so close that Roman can see how bloodshot his eyes are, how his smile has transformed into a sneer, how those bloodied hands have a knife at his throat.

The man shoves him, knocking him back down into the chair, the force of the shove and Roman's resulting impact threatening to tip the chair over.

"Stay, I ain't done talkin'," the man says, pocketing the knife. Roman swallows and gingerly feels around his throat, but it doesn't feel nicked, much to his surprise.

"So I guess I gotta threaten you to get you to leave," the man continues, almost sounding as if he's talking to himself rather than Roman, with the way he turns his back to Roman. "'Cause we don't want you here. And I know you were watching the other night. I know you were gettin' off on what you saw. He ain't yours to get off to… and if you touch him, I might just kill you."

The man pauses and clears his throat, as if he's expecting an answer. Roman opens his mouth, trying desperately to form a coherent sentence with the jumble of words and questions that are bouncing around in his brain, but no sound comes out.

" _DEAN!"_


	7. overdone

**I'd just like to stress two things: one, that this story, unlike Darkness Falling, doesn't have a constant POV. For maximum effect, chapters may be written from Roman's POV, Dean's POV, Seth's POV, or even someone else's...**  
 **And, two, that even though I said it was Roman who was watching them in chapter five, don't assume everything's that simple... things will get a lot more complex in the future.**

"Dean, what the _fuck_ are you doing?"

Roman's stunned to see the other man appear, almost immediately recognizing him as the one he'd seen getting fucked in the ballroom, and a part of him wonders why the hell they're back.

And what the hell is going on? Is this some sort of prank?

He can still feel the ghost of the knife at his neck, sharp-edged and forcing him to be at the mercy of the man who'd threatened him… Dean, apparently.

"I said we could try to run him out. I didn't say you could get in his face and threaten him, oh my god, Dean, I definitely didn't say you could try to kill him. Where did you get that knife from? What the hell are you doing? You _promised!"_ The other man sounds so panicked, so worried, and Roman feels like he's being yanked in a thousand different directions; that or he's having the most vividly bizarre lucid dream he'll ever have.

"Seth," and in that one word, Dean sounds weirdly apologetic, and Roman hears the sound of the knife clattering to the floor. "I didn't… He saw. He wants you."

Seth turns to look at him, a little wide-eyed, and Roman sees the momentary shock of recognition glance across his face, before it disappears as fast as it had appeared. "I don't know what you're talking about," Seth says, voice shaky. Roman doesn't even know the guy, but he knows a bad lie when he hears one.

Dean wraps a protective arm around Seth, tucking him into his side, eyes sweeping across the room to land on Roman. His eyes are still cold and hard, despite the affection he seems to be showing the other man. "He's been thinking about what he saw. Thinking about me splitting you open, fucking you good. And he wants you, I can tell."

"That's not true," and Roman doesn't even realize he's spoken until it's too late.

"Excuse me?" That angry rough-rasp is back. "You're telling me that if he came up to you and begged you to fuck him, you wouldn't?"

"I wouldn't," Roman forces himself to say, even though his mind is telling him not to speak, not to say anything else, because he's sure these two could kill him if they wanted to.

But wouldn't they have done it already?

Maybe they're just trying to drag it out to torture him.

He may or may not be currently regretting all of his life choices that have led up to this very moment.

"You're lying," Dean says, mouth quirking into a confident smirk. "Cause I just couldn't resist when he asked _me_ to."

" _Dean,"_ Seth hisses, slapping at his chest, but Dean barely even reacts. "We need to talk."

* * *

It's been two weeks, and Roman's starting to think he might have been imagining everything that happened when he first moved in.

Nothing's happened in two weeks. He hasn't heard a sound; hasn't seen anything out of the ordinary; hasn't seen Dean or Seth.

The sudden silence is almost uncomfortable; it feels suffocating to be in a house this big all alone.

He's considered moving out, but where can he go from here? He's stayed with his nicer cousins enough for him to owe them for the rest of his life, and he doesn't want to try to deal with the shitty landlord who had rented him his last apartment.

And there's one person in particular who he'd have to see if he went back home, and Roman really doesn't want to see him.

Roman doesn't want to go back home.

But he always ends up here, somehow. In the kitchen, nursing something in liquid form that's supposed to help him, but never does.

Tonight, it's a bottle of beer.

"Why the fuck haven't you moved out already?" he asks himself after he sips from the bottle and sets it back down on the island, harder than he intends to.

He's a little angry and a little buzzed; this is his fifth beer.

"You're a fucking idiot," he tells himself. "You should get out."

"Don't," Roman hears, voice soft and coming from behind him. He recognizes that voice, despite its absence for the past two weeks.

He smiles bitterly at the bottle on the counter and turns in his seat, finding Seth in the doorway, staring at him with worried eyes.

"You're drunk, aren't you?" Seth asks, taking the few steps necessary to cross the threshold into the kitchen.

"Must be, if I'm seein' your ass."

Roman pretends not to see the tiny smile his remark wrings out of Seth, turning back to the counter to take another sip from his beer. He hears Seth's footsteps approaching, but even then, he nearly jumps when he hears Seth's voice pipe up from beside him.

"Can I sit?"

"I don't know, can you?"

"Very funny," Seth says, and Roman doesn't offer a response as Seth slides onto the seat next to him.

The pair sits in silence for a few minutes, the silence only broken by Seth speaking up when Roman reaches for his bottle once more.

"Can I have some?"

"Depends. Are you gonna attempt what your boyfriend attempted?"

There's a long pause, and finally, Seth shakes his head no. Roman pushes the bottle toward him, watching with mild curiosity how Seth examines the bottle like it's the first time he's ever seen beer.

Seth lifts the bottle and gulps down a mouthful, and Roman raises an eyebrow when Seth declares it to be good.

"It's the cheap kind," Roman tells him.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Means it ain't that good. I've had better, but it does its job."

Seth hums his agreement and pushes the bottle back over to Roman. A silence that's vaguely uncomfortable in its intensity arises between them, until finally, Seth breaks it.

"I'm sorry about Dean," he says. "He gets… urges, I guess. Doesn't really know how to control them, and it's up to me to stop him."

"An urge is why he tried to kill me?"

"That and general overprotectiveness."

Roman takes another swig from the bottle and decides he doesn't want to deal with this shit, but it's too late to back out now.

"Why the fuck are either of you here? Who _are_ you?"

Seth laughs, but the sound is sharp and humorless, the equivalent of a bad note being pressed out of the wrong piano key.

"Hi, I'm Seth Rollins and I'm… fuck, I can't remember what age I am now."

"The hell do you mean you can't remember what age you are now?" Roman asks. His head is starting to hurt, but he's not sure if it's because of Seth or because of his overconsumption of alcohol.

Probably both.

Seth smiles, his expression tinged with what looks like both amusement and sadness, and Roman doesn't know how any of this happened.

"Would you like to hear the story?"


	8. stars

**I'm baaaaaaaaaack**  
 **Please note this chapter as a whole might be discordant because I just picked up on it again after not writing it for four months**

Seth is fifteen when he first meets Dean.

It's the first week of his freshman year, in a town where he doesn't know anyone other than his parents' employees' kids, and none of them mean shit to him.

He's alone.

The teachers at his middle school back in Davenport wouldn't believe it's the same kid; there, he was always the troublemaker, the one who pulled dangerous stunts and talked too much because he never knew when to shut up.

But here, he's quiet, because he doesn't think there's anything to say.

There's an obnoxiously loud kid in his English class who looks too old to be there, who puts his feet up on the back of some random kid's chair and does nothing but complain about how school is a waste of time and how he can't wait to get out of this hellhole.

* * *

Dean doesn't even notice Seth at first. He's less than pleased about having to repeat the majority of his classes, leaving him nearly sixteen in a room full of kids who are barely fourteen and look like they still belong in elementary school.

He tries to drag what few bits of entertainment he can from the situation, though, deciding it's up to him to piss off everyone else in his immediate surroundings just by existing. So he kicks a few kids, makes a few too many wisecracks, and pretends to have deep theories about the meaning of life.

He doesn't notice the kid with wavy brown hair who stares wide-eyed at him every morning until the second week of school.

* * *

The Sunday before the second week of school, Seth gets his hands on a bottle of bleach and manages to accidentally turn half of his hair blonde.

He'd only been intending for a quarter, but what the hell. He likes it, and fuck anyone who feels differently.

His mother, of course, is horrified, but his father doesn't let her do anything about it, saying that it's up to Seth to learn responsibility for his actions.

Finally, some fucking independence.

Isn't that what he's always wanted?

He doesn't even give a shit about all the weird looks he receives and the way people grow quiet when he walks by on the Monday morning that officially starts the second week of his freshman year.

* * *

The half-blonde catches Dean's eye the second he walks into his English class, but Dean doesn't bother to do anything about it until after class.

After class, Dean tails him until he realizes he's being followed, before he shoves the kid against a row of lockers and pulls on the blonde strands hard enough to make the kid whimper.

"What's this for?" he asks.

The kid responds in a voice that's barely above a whisper. "Got tired of being ordinary," is what slips from his lips, and it's some generic high school kid bullshit, but Dean kind of likes it.

"Tired of bein' ordinary, huh," he muses, tugging at the blonde strands again, just to hear the kid whimper once more. "I dunno, that sounds like somethin' an ordinary kid would say. Are you ordinary?"

"You don't even know me," the kid responds, a little more venom in his voice; there's a little bit of fight left in him. Dean smiles, and the kid looks baffled.

"'S true, I don't. But are you worth knowin'?"

"…What?"

"You heard me. Are you worth knowin'?"

"I… guess?" the kid responds hesitantly. Dean wants to push the issue some more, but he also knows he doesn't wanna push it too far. Sure, he gets a kick out of bothering everyone else in the school, but he's more intrigued by this kid than irritated, and he doesn't wanna push the situation the wrong way.

"Then prove it."

* * *

Seth finds that the obnoxiously loud boy in his English class isn't that bad, despite the collective opinion of the rest of the school. Yeah, he's abrasive, annoying, and he gives a shit about very little other than himself. But he listens better than anyone else Seth's ever known, and he's fiercely protective of what he _does_ care about, and he's fairly smart; the only reason he's having to repeat classes is because he hates the work, hates wasting his time doing something he considers useless when he could be out living and seeing the world. Seth knows the feeling, in a way; he hates having to be stuck at school, surrounded by people who don't know him, don't like him, whisper that he's a freak when he walks by and laugh at his retreating figure.

But his time spent at school gets a little better and the world gets a little brighter when he and Dean become friends. They bond over a mutual dislike for the school they're stuck in, and even though they come from entirely different backgrounds, they find they have similar tastes in music and movies. And sometimes, Dean bitches about his homework so much that Seth helps him with it, because neither of them want to be stuck there any more than they already have to be.

They grow closer as September turns into October and October turns into November. Dean essentially acts as Seth's bodyguard, walking him to class whenever possible and threatening anyone who even dares to look at Seth the wrong way. And Dean's still as annoying as hell in any class that he doesn't share with Seth, but in any class he has with Seth, he's quieter, bristling only if he hears whispers about Seth, spreading false rumors that they've never been able to get rid of.

There's been a lot of talk about how close Seth and Dean are, and the rumors are loud and widespread, claims that Seth and Dean make out underneath the bleachers after school, claims that Seth and Dean are fucking, tossed in with some slurs that Seth flinches at every time he hears, because he's always known he's different like that, but in this small town in Indiana anything other than the norm is unacceptable, and it feels like a death sentence for him.

And it's not like he feels anything for Dean, anyway. They're just friends, good friends, and even if he felt something, so what? He's pretty sure Dean's not like him, not like that. They have their similarities, yeah, but they're so different in so many other ways that Seth's sure Dean would never be interested in him.

And he's okay with that.

Something changes on the last day of school before the Thanksgiving break, when Dean confesses, almost casually, at lunch that he doesn't really have anywhere to go, that he'll just be spending the week in an empty house, if he's lucky. An idea forms in Seth's brain, and it trips off his lips before he can even think about the consequences or the possibility of Dean saying no.

"You could stay with me," he offers. At Dean's wide-eyed, shocked look, he continues on, rambling. "I mean, my parents are fucking loaded and we have a huge house that's basically empty, I didn't ask for it but whatever, might as well put it to good use, there's room for you."

"Seth, I couldn't—"

"Please?"

Seth looks so hopeful that Dean can't find it in him to say no, and he sighs and nods. "Fine. But your parents ain't gonna like me," he says.

"Fuck them," Seth scoffs. "I like you, and that's all that matters."

* * *

His parents are, obviously displeased with his decision to bring a virtual stranger into their home and let him stay there for a week, but Seth doesn't back down and they begrudgingly allow it.

He doesn't get why it matters so much, anyway. They always end up going out somewhere for Thanksgiving, and in recent years they've taken to leaving Seth at home, so at least _now_ he won't be utterly alone.

When Seth leads Dean into the house that evening after school, their hands clasped and fingers intertwined as if it's something casual, Seth nearly falls on his face in the foyer when Dean halts but he keeps going.

"Dean!" Seth scolds, although there's no real disapproval in his tone. He turns to face Dean, who's frozen to the spot, gazing at what's before him.

"Dean?"

" _Damn,_ Seth," Dean finally says, whistling. "Shit, you told me you had a huge house, you didn't say how huge. Goddamn. Can I just live here forever?"

"Maybe," Seth responds, and the fond smile on his face refuses to go away when Dean charges into one of the living rooms and makes himself at home atop one of the "nice couches."

He could get used to this.

* * *

It's two days later that Seth's parents leave for god-knows-where, only leaving a note saying that they've left him food that should be easy to make and if not, that they left money for him to order pizza.

It's not like Seth cares much, anyway. He's never been very close to his parents, and not just because he's not genetically related to them. He and his parents are about as different as can be: once he's comfortable, he gets loud and has too much energy and is restless, and he likes to cause too much trouble. His parents, meanwhile, are almost always perfectly poised, acting as if they're royalty and frowning upon Seth for whatever he does.

So it's good to get away from them, and now that he has a friend, it's even better.

* * *

By the end of that week, something's changed in their relationship; Seth just can't put his finger on what that is.

They'd spent hours together, hours and hours and hours, and Seth thought he'd get tired of it eventually, but he didn't. Even when Dean wanted to stay up until four AM when Seth just wanted to sleep. Even when he finally convinced Dean to go to sleep, only to wake up in the middle of the night and find him pressed against Seth's back, snoring into the nape of his neck.

And after seeing Dean wandering about with only a towel hanging loosely off his hips, Seth's not so sure he doesn't feel anything for Dean anymore. Dean's all nicely defined, _too_ nicely defined, and the sight of him half-naked does more to Seth's stubborn teenage body than he cares to admit.

Seth wants to ask if Dean's like him, wants to know if there's a chance for something, because he knows he'd hate himself if all his attraction goes to waste, but he's afraid.

Afraid to lose Dean. And maybe he shouldn't be so attached, but he's kind of forgotten how it felt to be alone, and he doesn't want to go back there.

There are only so many risks a boy can take.

* * *

So Seth doesn't say anything, doesn't bring it up, even when the break is over and Seth's parents have returned and Dean's no longer at his house 24/7.

As November slowly melts into December, Seth starts to feel like he's suffocating under the weight of his realization, the weight of the fact that he's attracted to Dean, that he can't change it no matter how fucking hard he tries.

Like when he 'borrows' money from his parents to buy Dean something decent for his sixteenth birthday, and Dean looks so shocked at the fact that he's getting a present that he looks like he's on the verge of crying, and Seth just wants to kiss him.

Instead, Seth bites on his lower lip until it threatens to bleed, and it swells as a result of the abuse and the next day Dean is worrying over him like he's Dean's most prized possession.

* * *

Nothing changes until the two-week break they receive during the winter holidays, when Seth demands Dean come home with him again and it takes an hour and a half of arguing for Dean to cave. Seth's parents are pissed, but still, Seth doesn't really give a shit. Dean is really all he's got, and he'll take any time with him he can get.

Nothing changes until the day after Christmas, the day after Seth presents Dean with another gift that he acts like he doesn't deserve, and there's been some kind of tension between them overnight that's been driving him mad.

And Seth, of course, being the impulsive idiot that he is, doesn't really stop to think about the possible consequences when he corners Dean on the afternoon of December 26th and kisses him.

Dean is stiff and unresponsive, and it's only when Seth pulls away that he fully understands what he's just done, and his heart drops into the pit of his stomach and he feels sick.

Dean is staring at him blankly, and Seth is so overwhelmed that he feels tears stinging his eyes, feels like a fucking child consumed by guilt from doing something wrong.

"The hell was that?"

"I don't know," Seth says weakly.

He thinks he hates himself.

But then something shifts on Dean's face, and it doesn't look like disgust, like hatred, like all the things Seth is feeling towards himself right now.

"Do it again," Dean says.

" _What?"_

"Do it again," Dean repeats, and when Seth's too dumbstruck to move, Dean takes it upon himself to initiate.

It's not a great kiss by any means, but it's good enough for them.

They don't talk about it for an entire week, even though they spend half of New Year's Eve cooped up inside together, alternating between making out and trying to entertain themselves in more mundane ways, before evening falls and Dean finds the 'fireworks storage closet', which, much to Seth's delight and his parents' anger, Dean raids and sets outside to try to light everything at once.

He doesn't manage to light _everything_ at once, but he does manage to cause small damage to Seth's mom's car, and Seth's surprised when they don't get kicked out upon her discovery of the damage.

They don't talk about the change in their relationship later that night either, when 1995 officially becomes 1996 and Dean presses a kiss to Seth's forehead and Seth feels like maybe they're something more than a couple horny, lonely teenagers seeking fulfillment in each other.

No, it's a couple days later when Dean says they need to talk, and they engage in a long conversation that has Seth at points feeling like his world is ending, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but it ends in a soft confession from Dean that he doesn't know what he is and who he is, except that he knows he wants Seth to be his.

And that's good enough for Seth.

* * *

The next couple of months fly by, even though the two of them are forced to keep their relationship under wraps, even though the rumors get filthier by the day, to the point where people claim that somehow, Dean's knocked Seth up and that's why he's acting weird. It's all bullshit, he knows it, but some part of him hates the fact that he has to keep the truth quiet, when all he wants to do is say _Dean is mine and we're happy so fuck off,_ when everyone else can go flaunt their relationships freely but theirs has to remain a silent whisper in the dead of night.

But they cope, even if their relationship only thrives in the backseat of Dean's cheap car, parked in empty lots underneath a sky colored by the sun dipping below the horizon until it fades into the darker tones of a night flecked with stars.

Seth likes to think of his life like that; a dark night dotted with stars.

He knows there's something better in the stars.

* * *

Roman's listening intently to the story Seth's telling him, even though he knows he shouldn't be this invested, shouldn't _care._ It feels vaguely uncomfortable to him, that he's listening to what's essentially the lovesick story of a couple teenagers, like some Romeo and Juliet shit.

But he and Seth are yanked from the story when they hear a loud clattering sound that sounds like it's just a few doors down, and then Dean appears in the doorway of the kitchen, looking angry but also weary, and he looks a little faded at the edges, as if he's not entirely solid.

It _should_ freak Roman out, but the copious amounts of shitty beer he'd drank have numbed his nerves effectively to the point where he just wonders what Dean wants.

"Dean," Seth says, a little urgently.

"I won't let you tell him," Dean says, and Roman shudders a little bit when he lifts his gaze and realizes Dean's eyes are on him, burning an invisible hole through him. "I won't. He doesn't get to know. No one does. It's not—It's not—I did it for _you,"_ he says, almost pleadingly, and Roman is so fucking confused that for a moment he thinks he's just in the middle of a bad dream.

"Dean, please. He needs to know. He doesn't understand."

"I won't let you," Dean repeats, and his voice is raw. "'Cause he ain't dead yet, Seth… 'n if anyone's gonna know, they gotta be dead first too."

 _Too._

The full meaning of that statement settles heavily on Roman, and even with dulled nerves, he thinks he might be sick.


	9. too late

**PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS CHAPTER IF YOU HAVE EXPERIENCED SUICIDAL URGES RECENTLY.**

Roman grips the edge of the counter tightly, as if attaching himself to it will help to clear up any of the confusion swirling around in his head.

He watches as Seth gets up and moves to Dean, placing a hand on his chest as he leans up to whisper something in his ear. Roman's mystified as whatever Seth says to him obviously calms him, as some of the fire in his eyes dims and his edges flicker a little bit.

Roman lets go of the counter for a brief moment and places his hands under the table to pinch the back of one, but it hurts as though he's not dreaming, even though he knows this can't be anything but a dream.

When Seth returns to his seat, Dean is gone.

"Sorry about him," Seth says, turning a little in his seat so that he faces Roman. "He's just worried. He thinks you're different, and he doesn't know how to… well, not show that."

"What do you mean, 'different'?"

"It's complicated. I don't think you'd understand. No offense."

Roman studies Seth for a moment, but he finds nothing malicious on his face or in his eyes, only something soft and apologetic, so he decides Seth's telling the truth.

"None taken, I guess. Was that the end of your story?"

"No, but the last part's…how should I say it…darker. And actually hearing it may make you want to move out. Which I guess is what Dean wants."

Fuck, but Roman's confused.

"I have no idea what the hell you're talking about."

That earns a pause.

"Do you really want to hear the rest of the story, then, Roman?"

It doesn't even register that it's the first time Seth's referred to him by name.

"…yeah." He doesn't know why he agrees.

"The long version or the short version?"

"The long version."

* * *

Seth's forced to officially come out on May 28, 1996, the day of his sixteenth birthday, when his parents, _of fucking course,_ walk in on him with Dean between his legs. He swore he had the fucking door locked.

They don't take it well when Seth tells them he's gay, and Seth wouldn't have expected anything else. But what he doesn't expect is how badly they take to Dean.

It's that night that Dean sneaks back into the house and finds Seth in his room, sitting on his bed with his knees pulled up to his chest, eyes red-rimmed and face wet.

Upon seeing Dean, Seth confesses the ultimatum he's been given: stop seeing Dean, or be sent back to Davenport.

And he knows that if it had been anyone other than Dean, he would've said yes immediately. Dean's the only bright spot for him in this town, nearly three hundred miles from the town he calls home.

So they argue over the ultimatum for a good hour, until they're exhausted from the stress and the uncertainty of their future together, until they're weary enough that Dean suggests they go to bed, and Seth lets Dean pull him to his chest, and Seth lays awake thinking, until, hours later, he makes his decision.

* * *

Daylight is just starting to break out over the horizon on the morning of June the first, and Seth is standing at the window with tears in his eyes. Dean is asleep on his bed about a dozen feet away, one arm slung over his eyes and his mouth hanging open. The sight of him looking so peaceful in the way only sleep can bring makes something twist in Seth's stomach, settling heavily atop the pit that's already weighing him down.

He knows this is the last sunrise he'll ever see.

He doesn't know if this is the last time he'll ever see Dean.

The cold metal in his hand feels like it's burning his skin.

He hopes he doesn't wake Dean.

He closes his eyes and presses his forehead against the windowpane, cooled by the morning dew beading on the glass.

He'd managed to break into Hunter's safe and 'borrow' his handgun, the one that was dusty with disuse and to be used "for emergencies only."

He thinks this definitely counts as an emergency.

And it isn't like he doesn't know how to use it; maybe the average sixteen-year-old kid doesn't know how to shoot a gun, but he'd been taught a few years back, for self-defense purposes.

If only Hunter knew now.

Seth hopes Dean will be okay.

Something pangs inside of him as he thinks of Dean, blissfully unaware of the decision Seth's made, blissfully unaware in sleep of the cruel world around them, the cruel world that calls their love a crime and tells them they can never be together.

Seth doesn't know what else to do.

He feels a tear leak out of his eye, rolling down his face, and he wipes it off with the back of his free hand and opens his eyes.

The sun is peeking out from beyond the horizon and Seth knows what he has to do.

It's his only way out.

* * *

It's a lot harder than he imagined. He'd imagined it'd be so easy; say your goodbyes and one shot and it's over.

But even though he's got what he needs, and he's closed himself off in the bathroom so maybe it'll be a little quieter and maybe he won't be found until later, his mind keeps wandering, keeps wandering back to Dean.

He hasn't told Dean. Dean knew how upset he was about the ultimatum, and even though they'd argued over it, Dean had told him in no uncertain terms that even if they were thousands of miles apart that he'd still love Seth, even if they were on two different continents, even if they were on opposite sides of the world.

And isn't this the same thing?

Seth looks into the mirror, looks at how tired he appears, looks at his glassy eyes, and closes them.

He's trying to think of what will make this easier.

"Oh my god, Seth, no," he hears, a few seconds later, and he only realizes he wasn't imagining it when he feels the cold metal of the handgun being ripped from his grasp.

He opens his eyes and Dean is standing there, the gun now in his hands.

Seth didn't even hear the door open.

"Seth, what are you—what are you doing?" Dean asks. His voice is higher-pitched than usual and every word shakes and Seth knows he's terrified.

"I'm making sure that… that we don't have to be separated," he responds, in a voice barely above a whisper, because he finds all the strength has gone out of his voice, as weak as his diminishing willpower.

But he has to go through with this.

"I don't get it, what does..." and there's a pause and Seth can see it click in Dean's head. "Seth, you _can't,_ " Dean pleads urgently, and now there are tears in his eyes too and Seth wishes they had never been caught.

"I have to," he says. "I can't lose you," he says, and he's vaguely aware of the tears falling down his face. His chest is tight and he's struggling to breathe.

"I won't let you," Dean says. "You can't leave me, Seth! You _CAN'T!"_

And before Seth can question him, Dean turns on his heel and exits, leaving Seth to stumble after him and hope that his parents don't wake up and fuck everything up.

He finds Dean in his bedroom, still holding the gun, face wet with tears and crumpled, as if he's already lost this battle they're fighting.

"Dean, give it to me," Seth says shakily. He knows he has to do this. It's too late to turn back.

It's too late.

"YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME!" It's nearly a scream, and Dean's wild-eyed, and Seth's heart is in his throat.

He reaches for the gun, and Dean tries to turn away before Seth can get his hands on it, but Seth's quicker and he gets his hands around the grip.

Dean tugs on the gun, obviously trying to yank it out of Seth's hands, but Seth's tugging on it in the opposite direction, and it's like a fight between the two of them, trying to see who can save who first.

Seth pulls too hard on one attempt and Dean's hand slips.

The gun goes off.

* * *

"I'd turned the safety off and didn't even remember it," Seth says, as if that explains anything, as if that explains Roman's urge to be sick now that it's starting to settle in that Seth is a fucking ghost haunting the house he'd bought way too cheaply.

He'd been too dumb to know something wasn't right.

"So…" Roman says, but he can't even finish his sentence.

Seth lifts a shoulder in a shrug, a smile that appears plainly bitter on his face. "I was gone, apparently," he says. "Dean was so upset that he decided to join me. I don't remember that, though… don't remember much nowadays, anyway. Just remember coming to, standing over my own fucking body. But Dean was there, too, wondering what the fuck we'd just done and why the hell we were still around."

"You're dead?" He has to choke the words out.

Seth nods. "And Dean is, too, obviously… now we're what you'd call ghosts, I guess. But he's a lot more into all the stereotypical ghost shit now than I am."

Roman feels the contents of his stomach lurch, and he stumbles to his feet and rushes to the sink. When he's done, he wipes his face and splashes it with some cold water, trying to get himself to calm down.

He stands up from the sink and turns around, and the place where Seth was sitting is empty.


End file.
